Carmen Castillo

Are personal attention and a friendly environment really important to your college experience? Just ask Carmen Castillo ‘09.

Carmen, a transfer student from the University of Puerto Rico, came to Washington College because its intimate size offered enormous opportunities.

“The campus where I used to go was huge, and the interaction with professors wasn’t the same. The professors here care more about you—they care what grades you get and they check up on you all the time. In Puerto Rico, they can’t afford to because there are so many students,” she said.

Born in Puerto Rico, Carmen moved with her family to Delaware during high school but decided to return to the island for college. “I was so used to the lifestyle and the culture there, and I was so eager to go back to my friends,” she said of her decision to enroll at the university.

“The school wasn’t what I expected,” Carmen said. An aspiring law student, she felt she needed to finish her education on the mainland.

“There are better opportunities here in general,” she said. Once Carmen decided to return to the U.S., it wasn’t difficult to choose Washington College.

“My best friend goes here, and from the beginning she told me it was an amazing school,” she said.

Carmen agrees. “There’s a huge difference in the education. I feel that here, I get all the concepts better the way things are explained to me.”

Her social life is also just as strong in Chestertown as it was at the urban university campus, partly because WC is rurally situated.

“Not having as many places to go off-campus makes you closer to the people around you,” Carmen explained. “We constantly have activities here where in Puerto Rico, everyone just wants to get in and out.”